seiner pulling in net
7/13, day 61, 24 mi, 831 mi total
we made it. it wasn’t quite a paddle in the park, but it was fitting. we left in a cloud this morning but the sky slowly lifted all morning until we actually saw blue sky by the time we pulled in.
we started the day with one of the nastiest launches we’ve had yet. the tide was all the way out, which meant the only bit of beach was a long walk across slippery rocks (not too unusual) and a stream. fording the shin-deep stream swollen with rain and full of seaweed to mask the rocks was interesting. doing so while carrying a 100-plus pound kayak was, well, challenging.
fought the southerly wind for a couple miles until we were back in the straight and heading north again… watched giant seiners pulling up their giants nets… stared bewilderedly at the increasingly constant stream of tour boats and flightseeing planes and fishing charters as we neared ketchikan… watched porpoises playing around the bow of a fishing charter speeding by…
finally paddled into town and checked in with us customs, which was almost easier than the canadian version. we had to walk up to an office building to find anyone and they did check our passports, but once again no one even confirmed that the kayak we claimed to arrive in actually existed.
and then we mostly just gawked at the crazy world of cruise ship tourism. there are docks for 4 monsters to line the shore here. that’s something like 4-6,000 tourists swarming the place in bus tours and trolley tours and duck tours and horse-drawn carriage tours… and then evening comes and the whole place empties and it starts all over the next day. when the ships are in dock, the view of the ocean and mountains and anything else is entirely blocked out. the only view is of the artificial floating cities.
it’s a little disorienting, a little overwhelming… kind of like jumping off the deep end back into society. or maybe getting thrown in…
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